What is the CMS data challenge?

Members of the CMS Computing Support Group at Fermilab will participate in this year's Computing, Software and Analysis Challenge. Image courtesy of CERN

The Large Hadron Collider will begin its second run of particle collisions in 2015. Before then, Oliver Gutsche and Scientific Computing Division's CMS Computing Support Group will participate in the Computing, Software and Analysis Challenge (CSA14). Taking place this summer, the challenge tests improvements to the worldwide distributed computing infrastructure of CMS to process and store the collected data from the detector and simulated proton-proton collisions.

Fermilab is a major provider of storage, production and analysis CPU resources for CMS. The LHC run starting in 2015 will have a beam energy of 13 teraelectronvolts — nearly double that of the first. A higher beam energy means there is an increase in the trigger rate and the rate that data is being collected. A higher trigger rate directly affects the amount of data being collected. Accordingly, Fermilab and the rest of the CMS grid infrastructure must be able to handle that additional data without a hitch.

"More computing resources are needed for LHC Run 2. We doing a lot of optimizing and improving with resources that we have to keep the computing requirements in our bounds," Gutsche said. "There are many aspects that have to be tested."

Changes to videoconferencing services at Fermilab

Fermilab's audio, web and video services are currently provided by ESnet. As of Sept. 30, ESnet will discontinue these services. Videoconferencing will continue to work with our Polycom units, but the lab has chosen to discontinue video bridging and multipoint hosting services. This means that the ECS ad hoc video services and phone gateway will no longer be offered.

After Sept. 30, the following videoconferencing services will be provided by Fermilab:

Continued audio and web collaboration services.

Point-to-point connections in most videoconference rooms. If you need to host meetings that require video connections to more than one site, conference room or location, you will need to use a video-bridging service provided by another institution or third-party service provider. (Exceptions available at link below.)

Support for connecting conference rooms to video-bridging services provided by other institutions with one week's advance notice. (Compatibility of our equipment cannot be guaranteed.)

Support for CERN Vidyo services remains unchanged.

We will hold the following town hall meetings to provide more details, present options and answer questions:

Tuesday, Aug. 5, from 9-10:30 a.m., WH1E

Thursday, Aug. 7, from 2-3:30 p.m., FCC2A

Thursday, Aug. 28, from 10:30 a.m.-noon, FCC2A

For more information about the changes to videoconferencing services, view this article.

In the News

Questions and answers with Chris Quigg

From Physics Today, July 2014

"I have devoted much energy to helping to define the future of particle physics — and the new accelerators that will take us there," says Fermilab theoretical physicist Chris Quigg on his professional website. Since graduating with his PhD in 1970 from the University of California, Berkeley, he has conducted research spanning many topics in particle physics, from heavy quarks to cosmic neutrinos.

Quigg is perhaps best known for his work on electroweak symmetry breaking and particle phenomenology. For example, in 1977 he and colleagues identified the theoretical upper limit for the mass of the Higgs boson. And his 1984 paper "Supercollider physics" — coauthored with Estia Eichten, Kenneth Lane, and Ian Hinchliffe and published in Reviews of Modern Physics — is credited with influencing the research now pursued at such facilities as CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In 2011 the American Physical Society awarded the authors of that paper the J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics for helping to "chart a course of the exploration of TeV scale physics using multi-TeV hadron colliders."

See into the future with eye protection

ESH&Q's Kathy Zappia displays some of the different types of protective eyewear that can be purchased at the Fermilab Stockroom. Photo courtesy of Kathy Zappia

You may have heard the phrase "keep your eyes on the job." It means more than just paying attention to what you are doing; it means properly wearing the correct eye protection for the job you are doing. The form of eye protection you choose will depend upon the activity and degree of the hazard involved.

Basic types of eye protection:

Safety glasses. Safety glasses have impact-resistant glass, plastic or polycarbonate lenses and safety frames designed to prevent the lenses from being pushed into your eyes upon impact. Standard safety glasses offer basic protection from jobs where a hazard may strike you from in front. When equipped with side shields or cups, additional protection is given where a hazard may come from the front, side, above or below. Tinted lenses provide protection from radiation hazards.

Safety goggles. Safety goggles are also impact-resistant and available with tinted lenses. They provide a secure shield around the entire eye area and give protection against hazards coming from many directions. They are used in sawing, soldering and when using chemicals. Goggles with indirect ventilation may be required if you are exposed to splash hazards.

Shields and helmets. Face shields and helmets alone are not protective eyewear. They are frequently used in conjunction with safety glasses or goggles for chemicals, heat or radiation hazards. Helmets are most commonly used when welding or working with molten materials.

Your eyewear should fit well, be comfortable to wear and should not cause headaches, slip off easily or fog up.

Nonprescription safety eyewear is available from the Fermilab Stockroom in clear, amber or dark (optical density 3).

Prescription safety eyewear is available from a vendor that is on site from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesdays in Wilson Hall in the ground-floor ESH&Q Training Room.

Remove contact lenses when performing tasks that may cause irritation under the lens, such as handling solvents.

As you can see, there's more to keeping your eyes on the job than keeping them open. Keep them protected!

—J.B. Dawson

Photo of the Day

Summer talks

The Undergraduate Summer Lecture Series wraps up tomorrow with its 16th and final talk. With each talk, summer students received an overview of some aspect of Fermilab life and research. Here, Harrison Prosper of Florida State University gives attendees an introduction to the field of particle physics. Photo: Elliott McCrory, AD